Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Last month we announced our bigsilver jubilee plans. In November, Creative Matters will be mounting The Art Day Project to celebrate and demystify the art of rug design and fair trade weaving, in partnership with the Textile Museum of Canada and Label Step. Showcasing our process of custom handknotted rug design, the show will include Art Day workshops and an educational display of how our rugs are manufactured in Nepal.

Art Day 13

The Creative Matters team also learned to make glass last month! For Art Day 13 (the luckiest of Art Days) we ventured out to Gregor Herman's studio in the Junction for a couple lessons in glass production.

Art Day is a way for our whole team to enjoy the process of making and creating in mediums beyond the digital. The results of each Art Day inspire our design process and help generate new concepts for our floor and wall coverings.

How can the art of glass blowing inspire our designs?

Let's follow the process with one of our Senior Designers, Tiffany Wu.

Here's Tiffany with her colours ready to be picked up by the molten glass that will become her final piece.

Tiffany blows through a special rod called a blowpipe that holds the ball of hot glass at the opposite end, while Gregor turns the rod to keep the shape of the glass even.

Once the hot glass has a bubble of air started, Gregor shapes it up a bit to prepare for design details.

Tiffany is using a tool to move the bits of colour into patterns for the final piece, as well as creating small bubbles inside the glass to add to the dynamic design.

Tiffany is being as precise as possible, but because the glass is so hot it's hard to tell colours apart.

After adding details, the glass is ready to be heated again for the second stage of blowing!

The glass is blown into a sphere.

The glass sphere is cut off from the blow pipe via heat and stuck to another rod. This creates an opening for the sphere, which can then be made into a small vessel.

Tiffany opens the vessel using special tongs, while Gregor turns the rod to keep the design even.

A happy maker with her finished piece!

Back in our studio, the glass is photographed and added to our Art Day files.

A concept is then created from the original piece using Adobe Photoshop! Can you see the inspiration?